Svirfneblin

Now that is uncalled for!So when a male wanders in and says female romance options need to be large-breasted supermodels, that's bad... but when a woman wanders in and says male romance options need to look like Eder or they're just too "ewww," that's okay? Sorry. Not doing the double standard thing. Durance is the only gimme "ewww," because I'll grant he doesn't take care of himself. Hiravias doesn't bathe and apparently likes to have sex while he's in the form of a giant cat. I believe 'eww' can be a pretty appropriate response to that.

Ok you named BG2. That is one. Which are the other RPGs? I mean both DA2 and DAI had more options for women. None of the ME games had more options for men. Ok I think there were a few more for men in ME3 so that is two (maybe there were a ton for either gender). Neither of the KOTOR games gave more options for men. So how is this rare? Granted not every RPG with romances is made by Bioware but they are the standard for this sort of thing. I am not claiming you are wrong just...I have no clue where you are coming from here. For the record, straight men have the most options in ME1 (Ashley + Liara). Straight females get one(Kaiden) and lesbians get one (Liara), gay men get 0. Straight men also get the most in ME2 (hey I get to count Kelly Chambers if you're going to count Sebastian from DA2.) Straight men get Miranda, Jack, Tali, Kelly. Straight women get Jacob, Thane, Garrus. Lesbians get Kelly, gay men get nothing. ME3...is complicated because the romance options carry over based on previous choices. Straight men have Ashley, Liara, Miranda, Jack, Kelly, but only Liara is always available. Straight women get Kaiden, Garrus, Thane, Jacob- it's worth noting that if Kaiden died at Virmire and Garrus was not romanced in ME2 then straight females have no options. The other two guys also cheat on you and inevitably die during the game so that kinda sucks- the male romance options only potentially die and none of them cheat on you. Gay men get Kaiden and Steve, Lesbians get Liara, Kelly, and Samantha. So overall I would say that straight men got the most options in the ME series, while straight women have gotten the most options in DA. Admittedly I didn't count DLC stuff from ME, romance content found only in a DLC is pretty weak IMO. SW:TOR only has straight romances except for the two mini romances in the expansion. Men get a few more options than women across all classes, they get 11 and females get 9. Jade Empire also had two options for straight men, one for straight women/lesbians/gay men. So overall, even Bioware tends to have more options for straight men.

Kendall was an orlan? I always figured he was human.

Also I'm not sure class accuracy bonuses should factor in- why are rogues better with scrolls than wizards?

For my offensive casters I often go with the utility talent boosting the element they use the most (Heart of the Storm, Scion of Flame etc.)

Well, they could have made the interactions pause gameplay and take up the screen like most conversations. Maybe they thought that was intrusive/annoying?

Well you can give them clothing so they don't have to run around naked, but yeah ranged dps often goes unarmored.

I think the Durance and Grieving Mother quest progression are triggered by rests after completing segments of the main plot- not sure on this though.

I didn't like The Witcher either, but I feel like I can't judge it fairly since having a set protagonist (and no companions) in an RPG is a pretty huge turn off for me.

Well it was pretty clear that Maerwald was insane, but the conclusion that you would end up like Maerwald because you were Awakened/a Watcher (the ambiguity with these two things happening at once doesn't help) is a logical leap.

I liked having different ammunition types, but I am not missing having to manage stacks of generic ammunition.

There's only one free inn in the game I believe, although in practice your funds soon make inn stays trivial (unless you rest after every encounter I guess).

I think Sagani is an interesting character- she balances the struggle of leaving her family with her desire to see the world. The latter is wearing thin due to years on a seemingly pointless journey but the Watcher gives her a ray of hope. Maybe she wasn't your cup of tea, but I dunno about poorly written. BG1 characters are basically just one personality trait since they have almost no room to express anything else. I suppose I can concede that they can be memorable in their one-note ness, but characters with no depth seems like bad writing to me. I thought Sarevok was a decent villain, my beef is mainly with the companions. Well and Gorion, people only remember him because he was important to the plot.

There are more heterosexual romances in DA:I than homosexual or bisexual ones. At no point in the DA series have there been more homosexual than heterosexual options. And here I thought I'd escape the "I'm a heterosexual male and not being catered to exclusively!" bull**** was exclusive to the BSN. I am sorry that having the same amount of romance options as gay men or lesbians qualifies as "as gay as possible" to you. DUDE are you blind, cassandra pentaghast looks like a ****ing man. That does not count as a straight romance option. She looks like a god damn transgender shemale or something, it's disturbing. Looks are pretty subjective, but I think most people would identify Cassandra as female and some find her attractive. Sorry Bioware doesn't give you boners anymore?

Gorion(you didn't use his name I noticed...) was memorable? He had almost no dialogue- he tells you to leave Candlekeep soon, then runs into Sarevok and dies. I think most of the people praising Baldur's Gate 1's characters are not quite seeing things clearly due to: A. Nostalgia glasses B. Liking BG1 for other reasons (combat, exploration etc.) and mentally connecting these positive experiences to the characters C. Having characters blank enough that the player can project personalities onto them which the game didn't actually write I just don't get how BG1 characters can be 'full of personalty' and 'memorable' and all that other stuff people attribute to them when their character consists of a few lines of introduction dialogue and some random phrases in combat or when you click on them. No future exploration of their character, reactions to anything, banters...just nothing. More writing does not necessarily make characters better, but BG1 companions (and Gorion) have so little writing and characterization I can barely consider them characters.

There are more heterosexual romances in DA:I than homosexual or bisexual ones. At no point in the DA series have there been more homosexual than heterosexual options. And here I thought I'd escape the "I'm a heterosexual male and not being catered to exclusively!" bull**** was exclusive to the BSN. I am sorry that having the same amount of romance options as gay men or lesbians qualifies as "as gay as possible" to you.

During the Heritage Hill quest I believe...although if you do the Endless Paths levels before then that would be inconsistent.

I agree that the companions are the reason the DA series might be better than PoE in my mind. I think PoE has better sidequests/main quest though (although DA:O was pretty solid here IMO). It's not so much that I think the PoE companions are badly written(though they do feel like lore dumps sometimes) but...they don't feel like they have that much content- their dialogue trees are exhausted pretty quickly, banter is good but sparse, interjections are relatively rare and don't actually affect the conversation. Things my PC says or does doesn't affect how my companions view me in any way most of the time, it's just a bit lacking overall. The companions do get more talkative at the end of the game, but it's a bit too little, too late for me.

I liked DA:I and PoE, probably DA:I a little more. I also liked DA2 for the record despite its flaws. My start to CRPGs was Baldur's Gate 1 + 2 (moreso 2). I know there are a lot of 'old school' fans that have a lot of criticism for more modern RPGs, but I don't fit in with that crowd I guess.

In theory, the Bhaalspawn could just live peacefully with one another, but some want to be murder deities and their divine heritage gives them violent inclinations. Melissan kills off all the "peaceful" Bhaalspawn she can anyway. Sarevok wasn't operating on the right information(that or plothole, take your pick)- he'd have to kill the other Bhaalspawn to ascend not just random people.

I'm neutral on continuing as playing as The Watcher or not- their story feels like it could finish here but doesn't have to IMO.

The main problem with the main quest in PoE is that there is a horrible disconnect (I didn't realize this until it was pointed out to me) -- there is no logical connection between "I've gained my stronghold" and "Now I'm in Defiance Bay and investigating the activities of a mysterious organization" (spoilers omitted). I overlooked this lack of connection because I considered "investigating the mysterious organization" as "just another side quest in the dozens that I had within minutes of arriving in Defiance Bay", but... Honestly, it really doesn't make any sense that you even be in Defiance Bay other than "Well, you don't have anywhere else to go". The main story line quests in BG1 and DAO might be simple or cliched, but at least they didn't have any gaps like this. On build diversity -- I consider the presence of multi/dual class options to be /part of/ build diversity, not an "extra". If you limit the discussion in BG1 to only the basic classes, then yeah, PoE has better build diversity, but that's unfairly penalizing BG1 -- where else are you going to give BG1 credit for including mult/dual classes? On the companions in DAO -- I tend to agree that they were weak in comparison to some other Bioware games, but I'm not trying to evaluate them on some absolute scale or anything -- just against the PoE companions. And by that standard, the PoE companions are very inferior. While I agree that PoE's story has an issue there, I would say that BG1 has a similar gap right from the start- instead of doing anything about investigating Gorion's death you go to Nashkel to solve the Iron Crisis because uh...it seems like the right thing to do? Overall I would say that BG2's story is not as deep or thought provoking as PoE's, but the execution is better.

Overall I'm going to go with Aloth. He has potential, but his "dual personality" thing got resolved very quickly and him being a Leaden Key member seems to come...late and no one seems to really care. You have one conversation with him about it and then it's water under the bridge, despite it being the faction you've been fighting since Act 2 that's done all this bad stuff. I guess they wanted to avoid a Yoshimo situation, but it's so underplayed I kinda wonder why it's there at all.

I think having companions interject sometimes to help 'solve' quests would be neat. Maybe you could even call upon them to help someimes "Aloth, do you have any input on this?" etc. Not sure about being able to use any companion's skill/attribute/etc. whenever you want though.

I think there would be more room for 'evil' companions if there were also more room for 'good' companions- basically more companion reactivity to how the PC does things. The companions aren't so invested in the Watcher's quest that they should stick around the PC no matter what, but they all do except Grieving Mother. Running out of companions isn't really an issue IMO, since you can hire adventurers if you ran off all the story companions.